Remember me, Mr Hann?

My old geography teacher, Mr Hann, always said I had an altitude problem. In just over a year we'll see if he was right

Kilimanjaro, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, stretches 5,895 metres/19,710 feet above the Tanzanian plains. At that height your oxygen intake is less than 50% of what it would be standing in Godalming High Street on a Saturday morning...before or after the monthly haircut

Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) is the posh name for the affliction. AMS is not a respecter of fitness level, age, race or football team. It sounds quite likely that it will affect all of The Kili 5 and our larger Explore group to varying degrees during the trek

Symptoms? Headaches, initially mild and then fiercer as the trek progresses through Kili's zones, throwing up and, worst of all, oedemas. Left winger for Panathanaikos? No - a potentially fatal cerebral or pulmonary condition, respectively fluid accumulations around the brain and in the lungs

Solution? Only one, if you come over all oedemal: bugger off back down the mountain. Pretty damned pronto. If you play the hero and carry on towards the summit, you will die, Meester Bond

Avoidance? Possibly. Eat heartily whenever offered anything by anyone. For once don't worry about the calorie count or your waistband - the more the better and enjoy the feeding frenzy while you can, like a Weightwatcher given the keys to the larder. And drink heavily. Every few minutes. Water only...save the beer for the return to Moshi

Diamox is a possible way to combat AMS, but it poses a bit of a dilemma. According to Henry Stedman in his excellent Trailblazer book Kilimanjaro, Diamox is a wonder drug that acidifies the blood, stimulates breathing, allowing a greater amount of oxygen to enter the bloodstream

But it does have side effects and could cause an allergic reaction. I've already got plenty of those, thanks, and could do without an interesting new one while a few thousand feet up an African mountain, with an oedema for company. And if you take it preemptively but still suffer from extreme AMS, then the medical guide will have one less option to try out. On balance Henry favours taking a supply with you and swallowing Diamox as a last resort if the AMS symptoms are extreme. Sounds like fun, eh?

One good thing about this altitude thing: the slower you take the ascent, the more likely you are to mitigate the effects. As I wrote in an earlier article fit or fat? this is a sound reason not to overtrain during the next 12 months. And Neph#1 Steve, with the exuberance of 21 year old youth, is more at risk from sprinting up Kili too energetically. See...I knew there had to be one advantage to being an old fart

I'm sure our tour leaders and guides will help moderate our pace too. Apparently pole pole is the incessant Swahili mantra intoned to slow us down, like an African metronome on Temazepam

Our chosen trail, the Machame route, might be tougher than the traditionally popular Marangu option, but it does moderate the altitude gain a little by spending an extra day on the mountain. But even if you make it as far as Summit Day that last climb sounds plain brutal. A bit like coming to the end of a marathon, only to be told that you've just got to jog a further 10k before you can wrap that embarrassing silver foil overcoat around your limp body

Starting from Barafu camp at 4,600m the final slog will kick off at midnight, in seriously freezing temperatures and canary-like, with head torch strapped to your balaclava-encased northern extremity

We'll inch our way towards Kibo, the highest of the 3 volcanic peaks, combatting altitude, scree, ice and fear in equal measure. Some of us will hopefully make it to Stella Point at 5,795m and then around the crater rim to Uhuru Peak, at 5,895m the true summit and pinnacle of Africa

Perversely, the few that make it that far will only be able to spend fleeting moments savouring success and, frozen digits crossed, clear views of the sun rising over Tanzania several miles below. After all that pain the altitude dictates a note to your body: I've given you a glimpse of my beauty but if you outstay your welcome I'm afraid I'll have to kill you

Then it's a helter-skelter harem scarem scree-sliding sprint back down, resting overnight at Mweka Camp at 3,100m

So in One Amazing Day, you're faced with 1,300m of chilling, darkened slippery near-vertical ascent followed by a vertiginous drop of 2,800m. On the move for 14-16 hours. Let's not call it a holiday any more, Mrs M

And by the way, Gill - Mrs M - has suffered for years from congestion (nasally as well as M25ally) and sinus problems, probably caused by a burst eardrum earlier in life. So much so that going up the escalator in Army & Navy in Guildford is a bit of a trauma....I'm not absolutely sure yet how she's going to cope with that final charge up Kili but fair play for even agreeing to the challenge. I'll let her tell you in her own words about that congestion stuff and what her master plan is to overcome it. And the Raynaud's disease, of course

Anyway, time to get back on the fitness trail and work on the VO2MAX, I reckon...and find out if Mr Hann is still alive, just in case I manage to prove him wrong

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed

Theodore Roosevelt

The Wheel Deal

Well, I have started what I shall refer to in future as my rigorous training for the climb of Kili. It is alternatively known as cycling to work.

I have been doing this on and off since I started my job in the city centre last October, but over winter it has been an absolute pain doing it for various reasons. Despite being a complete wuss, I have occasionally braved the elements, and it's only on extremely wet and windy days that I opted to take the train instead. More often than not, the problem was with the bike itself.

My bike is a cheapo one from Halfords, which I bought a while back now for about £60. At the time I needed it to get to and from uni, which was only a 10-15 minute ride away. Sadly, my office is now a solid 40-minute bike ride far from my home, over hills and dales, so my poor old bicycle often couldn't cope with such pressures. I have had various problems with spokes breaking, tyres being too flat, mudguards snapping, brakes being incorrectly adjusted, and it all culminated in my back brake completely giving up service a couple of weeks ago. The entire brake had to be replaced.

Well, we finally carried out the replacement procedure last weekend, and I have just had my first complete week of cycling to and from work without any problems. I am really hoping that no more serious problems will arise, so that I can keep this up. I'm also hoping that the weather improves a bit, so that the whole cycling experience becomes more pleasurable.

And finally, I'm also hoping that it will help my fitness levels... At the moment, there are about two or three parts of my journey where I feel that my lungs will explode and I'm going to die. If I have trouble going uphill at more or less sea level, goodness knows how I'm going to manage when I'm 5000m high up!